Your energy body is a garden

CHAKRASHOLISTIC HEALTHNEW

9/3/20266 min read

I have been a herbalist long enough to notice that people talk about their energy the way they talk about a lawn they have let go. Something has got away from them. There is guilt in it. They want to know how to fix it, quickly, and then not think about it again.

I understand the impulse. I do not think it works.

A garden is not a problem you solve. It is a relationship you keep. You water in dry weeks, you cut back in autumn, you notice the corner that never gets sun and you plant something that likes shade rather than fighting it every year. Nothing about that is dramatic. It is mostly just turning up.

Your energy body works the same way. And that is the whole idea behind Chakra Garden, which opens on the equinox this September.

The garden you already have

You do not need to build an energy body. You have one. It is the felt sense of yourself that exists alongside your physical body and moves with it, the thing that tightens in your throat before a difficult conversation and loosens in your chest when you finally say what you meant.

Different traditions have mapped it differently. The map I work with names seven main centres running from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. Root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye, crown. Each has its own character, its own colour, its own way of going quiet or going loud.

Think of them as seven beds in one garden. They share soil. Weather in one reaches the others. When the root bed is dry, the crown does not flower well, however much attention you give it.

What each bed is for

Briefly, because there is a lifetime in each one:

Root is the ground under you. Safety, belonging, having enough. When it is thin, everything feels precarious even when it is not.

Sacral is flow, pleasure, creativity, the willingness to be moved. It goes quiet in people who have been very sensible for a very long time.

Solar plexus is your fire. Will, digestion, the capacity to act on your own behalf. It is often either banked too low or burning everything.

Heart is connection, in both directions. Giving is usually the easier half.

Throat is truth and expression, and it is not only about speaking. It is about whether what is inside you is allowed out at all.

Third eye is perception. Insight, discernment, the quality of your seeing.

Crown is the wider thing. Meaning, connection to what is beyond you, however you name that.

You will already have a sense of which of those is thriving and which is neglected. That instinct is usually right.

What tending actually means

Here is where I part company with a lot of chakra material. Most of it stops at the diagnosis. You read a description, you recognise yourself, and then there is nothing in your hands.

I wanted something you could hold.

So each month gives you one centre to attend to, and four ways in:

A herb. Something to drink, mostly, taken as a tea over weeks rather than a dose taken once. Herbs work slowly and they work on the whole person.

An essential oil. The fastest route in, because scent goes straight past the thinking part of you. A drop on a tissue is enough.

A flower essence. The subtlest of the four. Not pharmacological, and I say that plainly. It works on mood and pattern, and if you have never used one I would ask you to simply try it and observe rather than decide in advance.

A crystal. Something to carry, or set on a windowsill, or hold when you have run out of words. A physical anchor for an intention.

All four belong to the same centre. They are not four alternatives to choose between. They are four doors into one room, and you can open as many as you want.

What the first month holds depends on where you are standing, and I will come back to why in a moment.

In the northern hemisphere (see below) it is the root. Spirulina, vetiver, olive, bloodstone. Ground, steadiness, and having enough underneath you, which is what a closing season asks for before it asks for anything else.

In the southern hemisphere (see below) it is the sacral. Wild yam, wild orange, honeysuckle, carnelian. Flow, warmth and the willingness to be moved, which is what an opening season asks for first.

Three years, not one

I built one year first. Then I looked at it and realised a year is not actually very long.

Twelve months takes you round the seven centres once, some of them twice. That is enough to introduce you to your own garden. It is not enough to know it. So there are three years in there now, thirty six months of tending, and they are built as a spiral rather than a loop.

The spine stays put. Whichever centre a given month gives you, that same month gives you that same centre in year two and again in year three. The order never moves. What changes is what you are handed to tend it with.

Take the northern first month, the root. Year one hands you spirulina, which is plain green food for someone who has spent a season giving out. Year two hands you American ginseng, which takes years in the ground before anyone digs it and works the same way in a person. Year three hands you horsetail, which is mostly silica and is about structure, about standing up straight.

The southern first month does the same thing in its own key. The sacral opens with wild yam, then plantain, then parsley. Stirring, then softening, then clearing out.

Three different answers to the same question, each asked at a slightly deeper level. Same bed, replanted.

Wherever you are standing

The equinox is the point of balance, light and dark held equally before the year tips one way or the other. I write from Portugal, so for me it tips towards the dark. The outward season is closing and the gardening moves indoors.

If you are reading this from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina or anywhere else below the equator, the same morning tips you the other way, into spring and lengthening light. I am not going to pretend otherwise, and I am not going to write as though the whole world is reaching for a jumper.

Neither does the app. It asks you, once, before it shows you anything, which hemisphere you are tending in. Then it runs your garden to your seasons rather than to mine. A southern September is the spring equinox on your screen exactly as it is out of your window, and every month after that follows suit. This was not a small thing to build and I would not have released it without.

What holds either way is the threshold. Balance is balance. A year that has been running in one direction pauses, levels, and turns. Whether the turn is inward or outward, it is still the moment to look at what you have been carrying and decide what to tend next.

Why a month, and not a day

I could have built a daily practice with a streak counter. Plenty of apps do.

But a month is how long it takes to notice anything real. A tea you drink for three days tells you nothing. A tea you drink for three weeks changes how a particular hour of your day feels, and you only notice in retrospect, which is how most genuine change announces itself.

A month is also honest about your life. You will miss days. The month absorbs that. A streak does not, and a broken streak makes people quit entirely, which is the opposite of what I want for you.

Beginning at the equinox

Over the next few weeks I will write about each part of this properly. Grounding and what nature actually does to a nervous system. The heart, the hands, and why Reiki belongs in this conversation. Breath and stillness. The higher centres, which are the ones people most want to leap to and most need to earn. And a closing piece on the season itself.

If any of this lands, come and stand at the gate with me.

Join the waitlist for Chakra Garden and I will let you know the morning it opens.

---

Chakra Garden is offered for educational and spiritual purposes. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for care from a qualified practitioner. If you are pregnant, taking medication, or managing a health condition, please speak to your doctor or a qualified herbalist before using herbs or essential oils.

Bo-tanics Aroma-Herbary

W E L C O M E T O T H E G A R D E N